Navigation: Home Back to Introduction Page
Corporate Group Guidelines
In 2008, the International Insolvency Institute (III) established its “Committee on International Jurisdiction and Cooperation. The Committee commissioned its chairman, the Honorable Ralph Mabey, and its reporter, Susan Johnston, with developing a set of guidelines designed to improve the coordination of insolvency proceedings affecting multinational groups of companies. The result of their work is laid down in the “GUIDELINES FOR COORDINATION OF MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE GROUP INSOLVENCIES” (also called “MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE GROUP GUIDELINES”). The first draft of the Guidelines was presented at the III’s 8th annual conference in June of 2008 in Berlin. Subsequent drafts were presented at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th annual conferences in New York, Rome, and Paris. Before the presentation of the 2011 draft in New York, the members of the III were invited to take a survey on the compatibility of the Guidelines with the national law of their respective country. The survey showed that several judges from civil law countries were not convinced that the Guidelines would work under their legal system. This caused the Committee to increase the number of its advisors from one advisor to a group of advisors including three individuals from civil law jurisdictions (two from Germany and one from France), and three individuals from common law jurisdictions (two from the US and one from the UK) The latest version of the Guidelines which was presented in Paris on June 21, 2012, has addressed the concerns raised by the III members from civil law jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, the Commission of the European Union has published a "Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings" (see link in left column) which also addresses insolvencies of corporate groups (articles 42a - 42d). In Germany, the Federal Ministry of Justice has published a discussion draft of an act on the facilitation of the management of insolvencies of enterprise groups. The draft (in German) can be downloaded by clicking the link in the left column.
The discussion in Germany has brought about praise and criticism of the discussion draft. It remains to be seen if the discussion of the proposal by the European Commission and the draft by the German Federal Ministry of Justice will have any impact on the development of the III's Corporate Group Guidelines.
If you have any question regarding these guidelines, you can send an email request to insolvencycourts.org by clicking the "EMAIL A REQUEST" link in the left section of this page.